Crypto Currency

A strategist at JPMorgan predicts that the worst of the bear market could be over as stronger crypto firms have come in to bail out the industry in the midst of major deleveraging. The historic deleveraging of the cryptocurrency market could be coming to an end, which could signal the close of the worst of the bear market, according to a JPMorgan analyst. In a Wednesday note , JPMorgan strategist Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou highlighted increased willingness of firms to bail out companies, and a healthy pace of venture capital funding in May and June as the basis for his optimism. He said key indicators support the assessment: "Indicators like our Net Leverage metric suggest that deleveraging is already well advanced." The deleveraging of major crypto firms, where their assets have been sold either willingly, in a rush, or via liquidation, began largely in May when the Terra ecosystem collapsed and wiped out tens of billions of dollars. Since then, crypto lenders BlockFi and ...

The difficulty bomb has been successfully delayed according to core dev Tim Beiko and Ethereum ecosystem developer Nethermind. The difficulty bomb-delaying Gray Glacier hard fork went live on Ethereum on Thursday without a hitch according to the network’s core devs including Ethereum Foundation’s Tim Beiko. The Sepolia testnet is also set to run through its Merge trial over the next few days and is the second last testnet to go through the trial before the official Merge. According to Etherscan, the Gray Glacier hard fork was initiated on block number 15050000 at roughly 6:54 am ET, June 30. The hard fork will now delay the difficulty bomb by roughly 700,000 blocks or 100 days, giving devs until mid-October to complete the long-awaited Merge . Ethereum Foundation community manager Tim Beiko promptly went  to note on Twitter later that day that at 20 blocks past the fork, all monitored notes remained in sync, stating: “20 blocks past the fork and it's looking good: all monit...

Quarterly returns on Bitcoin haven’t been this bad since it was trading under $20 in the early days of Mt. Gox, but the stock market isn’t faring so hot either. Bitcoin ( BTC ) has seen its worst quarterly loss in 11 years with price and activity on the blockchain both plunging over the last three months. The second quarter ending June 30 saw Bitcoin’s price fall from around $45,000 at the start of the quarter to trade at $19,884 before midnight ET on June 30 according to CoinGecko , representing a 56.2% loss according to crypto analytics platform Coinglass . It’s the steepest price fall since the third quarter of 2011, when BTC fell from $15.40 to $5.03, a loss of over 67% and worse than the bear markets of 2014 and 2018, when Bitcoin’s price slumped 39.7% and 49.7% in their worst quarters respectively. The past quarter saw eight weekly red candles in a row for Bitcoin and the month of June saw a draw down of over 37%, the heaviest monthly losses since September 2011 which saw...

BnkToTheFuture's three proposals include two different ways to restructure and relaunch the firm, or an option to co-invest in the firm with a bunch of Bitcoin whales. Celsius’ lead investor BnkToTheFuture has outlined three proposals to save Celsius from bankruptcy while finding a good outcome for shareholders and depositors with funds stuck on the platform. Shared on Twitter by BnkToTheFuture CEO Simon Dixon on June 30, the three distinct proposals include either two options of restructuring and relaunching Celsius, or potentially co-investing in the platform alongside wealthy Bitcoin Whales. “ Proposal #1: A restructuring to relaunch Celsius and allow depositors to benefit from any recovery through financial engineering. Proposal #2: A pool of the most influential whales in Bitcoin to co-invest with the community. Proposal #3: An operational plan that allows a new entity and team to rebuild and make depositors whole.”  Dixon previously referred to “financial innovation” b...

“Europe’s upcoming crypto-assets policy framework will be to crypto what GDPR was to privacy,” says Circle chief strategy officer Dante Disparte. Officials from the European Union (EU) have agreed on a landmark law that will make life tougher for crypto issuers and service providers under a new single regulatory framework.  Stefan Berger, European Parliament member and rapporteur for the MiCA regulation — the person appointed to report on proceedings related to the bill — broke the news on Twitter saying that a “balanced” deal had been struck, which has made the EU the first continent with crypto-asset regulation. MiCA Trilog: Durchbruch! Europa ist der erste Kontinent mit einer Krypto-Asset Regulierung. Parlament, Kommission & Rat haben sich auf ausgewogene #MiCA geeinigt. Für mich als Berichterstatter war wichtig, dass es hier keine Verbannung von Technologien wie #PoW gibt /1 — Stefan Berger (@DrStefanBerger) June 30, 2022 Known as the Markets in Crypto-Assets (Mi...

Even a small adoption of the reward token could see up to $300 million used to fund environmental initiatives and provide clubs with funding to benefit the community. In a small coastal town just north of Brisbane, Queensland, 20 members of the Coolum Surf Club have been taking part in an initial trial of the Erth Point System, a crypto rewards platform from the Australian company Rewards4Earth. Doug Flockhart, former CEO of Clubs Queensland, the body for community clubs in the state, spoke to Cointelegraph about how his goal is to integrate the system through over 1,000 community clubs across Australia. Flockhart said the top professional rugby league competition, the National Rugby League (NRL) “are very keen” on the idea and for Flockhart, it “confirms the capacity of this system to deliver”. The top Australian rules football competition, the Australian Football League (AFL) has also expressed interest he added. The Coolum Surf Club is a small community surf club that’s part of...

An NFT trader pulled off a supposed tax write-off "masterclass" by booking a 74.2 ETH profit at a $52,000 loss, and print-on-demand firm Pixels.com has rolled out NFT merch support. Popular Ethereum-based Metaverse gaming platform The Sandbox has unveiled a bridge that enables users to transfer their virtual NFT LAND and native SAND tokens over to Layer-2 network Polygon (MATIC). While The Sandbox will live on Ethereum for the most part, the platform has emphasized that conducting SAND and LAND transactions on Polygon will result in lower gas fees, faster transaction speeds and greener interactions on the blockchain. The firm stated via Twitter on June 29 that it is now ready to start deploying LAND on Polygon, and users will be able to receive a 10 mSAND cashback worth roughly ($10.60) on LAND ported over to the Layer 2. We are ready to deploy LAND to @0xPolygon Each LAND bridged grants a 10 mSAND cashback! LAND multipliers on both mSAND staking programs are back! ...

From July 3 the four-week window for application developers and exchanges to test the upcoming Cardano upgrade begins before it's launched onto the mainnet. Cardano ( ADA ) blockchain developer Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK) has submitted an update proposal to hard fork the Cardano testnet, kicking off the countdown for the network's Vasil mainnet upgrade. The Vasil upgrade is slated to bring “significant performance and capability upgrades” to the blockchain , with IOHK describing the fork as the “biggest and best upgrade to date” providing a higher throughput, improved script performance for developers and lower costs. One of the most significant updates pointed out by the team is the implementation of diffusion pipelining aimed at improving the blockchains' scalability for decentralized applications (DApps). The update will allow faster block creation as they can be transmitted without full validation. If everything goes smoothly, the upgrade to the testnet will t...

Grayscale CEO Michael Sonnenshein on Wednesday said the company was “deeply disappointed” and “vehemently disagree” with the SEC’s decision to deny their application. Grayscale Investments has launched a legal challenge against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) after being denied its application to convert its Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) into a spot-based Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). On June 29, it announced that its Senior Legal Strategist, former U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. had filed a petition for review with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Verrelli stated that the latest decision shows that the SEC is acting “arbitrarily and capriciously” by “failing to apply consistent treatment to similar investment vehicles” and will be pursuing a legal challenge based on the SEC’s alleged violation of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and Securities Exchange Act (SEA). Grayscale Investments, which has $12....

BTC price briefly fell below $20,000 and traders warn that the all-important support level could eventually crumble after enduring an increasing number of retests. Bullish cryptocurrency traders hoping that the market was on a path higher received a dose of reality on June 29 as the price of Bitcoin ( BTC ) dipped below $20,000  again during intraday trading.  Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the top cryptocurrency fell under pressure in the early trading hours on June 29 with bears managing to drop BTC to a daily low of $19,857 before price was bid back above the $20,000 mark. BTC/USDT 1-day chart. Source: TradingView Here’s a look at what several analysts are saying comes next for Bitcoin as it struggles to gain momentum and break free of the current price range. Prepare for a choppy summer A word of warning for traders looking to enter the market at these levels was offered by analyst and pseudonymous Twitter user IncomeSharks, who ...

The DAO intends to generate yield with its native DAI stablecoin via traditional investments in US treasuries and possibly even corporate bonds. MakerDAO is currently voting on a proposal aimed at helping it weather the bear market and utilize untapped reserves by investing 500 million Dai stablecoins into a combination of US treasuries and bonds. Following a straw poll in a governance 'Signal Request,' the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) members now must decide whether the dormant DAI should go entirely into short-term treasuries or split 80% into treasuries and 20% into corporate bonds. The Maker Governance votes to determine how to allocate 500 million DAI between different investment strategies. This allocation poll is a result of the passage of MIP65: Monetalis Clydesdale: Liquid Bond Strategy & Execution. A recap on how it would work. 1/ pic.twitter.com/SdF9QT2OM6 — Maker (@MakerDAO) June 27, 2022 MakerDAO is the governing body of the Ma...

“Litigation and enforcement activity is likely to accelerate in the current regulatory climate, perhaps in unpredictable ways,” says lawyers from Choate Hall & Stewart LLP. Regulatory uncertainty surrounding crypto has created a “fertile environment” for crypto-related litigation and enforcement to grow, according to lawyers from Choate Hall & Stewart LLP. In an analysis piece published on Law360 on June 28, lawyers from Choate Hall & Stewart LLP, including Mike Gass, Diana Lloyd and Alex Bevans, noted increasing evidence that “novel applications of existing laws” are being used to litigate against users and investors of cryptocurrency, predicting this trend to only accelerate over time: “High market capitalization, alongside widely discussed regulatory uncertainty, has created fertile ground for litigation and enforcement to grow.” The lawyers cited several cases as examples, including the prosecution of a U.S. citizen for violating sanctions using crypto, several law...

Despite a significant fine from Iowa’s regulator just two weeks earlier, BlockFi has scored itself a license in the state. Just two weeks after being fined by Iowa’s regulators for offering and selling unregistered securities, crypto lending platform BlockFi announced on June 28 thait has received a Money Services License in the state. The Iowan license will allow the crypto lender to receive money and sell payment instruments in the state. BlockFi on Twitter stated it will begin by allowing Iowan residents to trade stablecoins. We're excited to announce that we’ve received our Money Services License in Iowa. Iowa residents can now trade stablecoins on our platform and instantly transfer funds via ACH. pic.twitter.com/sNEFIlCeWY — BlockFi (@BlockFi) June 28, 2022 Previously on June 14 the Iowa Insurance Division (IID) responsible for securities sales in the state fined BlockFi over $943,000 for violations of the state’s Securities Act. IID alleged BlockFi had “offered a...

The Ronin bridge tied to Axie Infinity is back up with a new design after Sky Mavis introduced a circuit breaker system and daily withdrawal limits. Sky Mavis, developers of the popular play-to-earn (P2E) NFT game Axie Infinity have announced that the Ronin bridge is back online three months after it was hacked for more than $600 million. The Ronin bridge is an Ethereum sidechain built for Axie Infinity, and it enables users to transfer assets between the sidechain and the Ethereum mainnet. On March 29, 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC) was drained from the bridge after hackers managed to gain access to private validator keys. The hack was worth more than $620 million at the time . According to the June 28 announcement from the Sky Mavis team, the Ronin bridge is back online after three audits (one internal, two external), a new design and full compensation of users' stolen assets . “All wETH and USDC owned by Ronin Network users is now fully backed 1:1 by ...

Marathon’s CEO Fred Thiel said that it will take time to get the facility back to full strength, but that the company could decide to speed up its move out of Hardin. Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital Holdings has revealed that 75% of its mining capability has been out of commission since a severe storm hit Montana on June 11.  Marathon finally issued a statement on its website on June 28 explaining that the storm struck across the town of Hardin, Montana on June 11, damaging the power generating facility that supplies Marathon’s local mining operations. According to the company, “initial electrical tests have found that the majority of the Company’s miners were not materially damaged by the storm.” The company noted that 30,000 devices, or 75% of the company’s fleet, have been out of action since the storm. Bitcoin blockchain explorers indicate that the miners have been down for two and a half weeks. “With these miners offline, Marathon’s Bitcoin production is expecte...

Gensler said he saw many crypto assets having attributes of a security, adding that Bitcoin is the only crypto he was comfortable publicly labeling as a commodity. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler riled up Crypto Twitter on Monday after affirming that Bitcoin ( BTC ) is a commodity. Questions were raised about its impact on Grayscales’ proposed Bitcoin ETF and why Ethereum wasn’t mentioned. Speaking to Jim Cramer on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Monday, June 27, the SEC chair said while many crypto-financial assets have the key attribute of a security, Bitcoin is the “only one” that he was comfortable publicly labeling as a commodity. “Some, like Bitcoin — and that's the only one I'm going to say because I'm not going to talk about any one of these tokens, but my predecessors and others have said they’re a commodity.” Grayscale Bitcoin ETF The remarks kicked up chatter about Grayscale’s application to convert its Bitcoin Trust into a spot-based exchange...

The exploiter seems to have rejected the Harmony team’s bounty offer of $1 million to return the $100 million stolen from the Horizon Bridge token bridge. The funds from Harmony’s Horizon Bridge have begun to move into the Tornado Cash Ethererum mixer, signaling that the attacker has no intention of accepting the $1 million bounty offered. The decision to obfuscate the ill-gotten gains answers questions about whether the Harmony team’s offer of just 1% of the $100 million in crypto funds stolen on June 24 would be enough to convince the exploiter to return them. #PeckShieldAlert ~6k $ETH (~$7.1m) into @TornadoCash from @harmonyprotocol exploiters Intermediary address: 0x432...47ae pic.twitter.com/AR9dmJRQet — PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) June 27, 2022 A total of 18,036.3 ETH worth about $21 million was moved out of the Horizon Bridge exploiter’s primary wallet at 03:10 am ET on June 28. These funds were then divided equally three ways and sent to three different a...